Social Reading

I hate how Kobo keeps wanting to sync with Facebook. They have created a whole new “social reading” where you earn badges for reading more than others, and share what pages you are on. Reading isn’t social. Reading is something I do alone, in my living room, in my pajamas with the lights on. It’s not thing I run through the streets screaming from the top of my lungs “I just purchased fifteen new books, but still have ten I borrowed to read!” “I went to Chapters today!” “I spent twenty minutes are work looking at the new ebooks on Amazon!” No I scroll through the lists while watching tv, or quietly linger through the shelves at the store. Reading is personal and when you make it it “social” or public you invite others to rip about your views and thoughts and hopes for the characters because they don’t feel the same. Reading is the only place that “free speech” is not allowed. Social and reading are two words that do not go hand in hand. Unless you have Bookclub in there too.

She did my dishes!

Every once and a while I’m reminded of how great, kind, and thankful my friends are.

It’s gotten harder and harder for me to see this because I see a lot of the same five or  friends weekly that their thankfulness and kindness blends into our everyday lives. I am thoroughly thankful that one of my friends refuses to let me pay for things when we go to the bar because of my income. Yes I know that is kind of rude of me, but I make just enough to get by month to month. We tend to only go to the bar once a month, and every couple of times I repay him with a bottle of something for him to enjoy at home. Other times it’s just the smiles or genuine How was your week? that remind me how much they mean to me.

On Friday most of Southern Ontario awoke to a blanket of snow. A really good friend of mine travels downtown for work from about two hours north, where they must have gotten a great deal more snow than we had. I was not at my place, as I had gone to my mom’s the night before (at mom’s request because of the coming snow). This friend stays with me about once a week after we see a show, or grab dinner with other friends and has a key to my front door (I leave for work at 8am, she leaves at noon, so she needed one to lock my door). Friday morning she found out that she had to work, and called me to find out if she could crash at my place instead of driving back home after work. Of course I said yes, but told her that I wasn’t there and it could be a bit of a mess and not to judge me. Around 7pm, while I was having dinner with a new friend, the front door of my building called my cell and I buzzed her in (I love this so much!).

I returned home on Sunday afternoon. My place was a mess. The kitchen table was covered in mail I didn’t care to open, and I had textbooks all over my living room. I remembered I had dishes in the sink that I didn’t care enough to do, but when I looked over to my very small kitchen, I noticed the dry rack was full, and the frying pan I had used was hung up. She did my dishes! I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t ask her to. I figured she would add to my pile, and I’d do them that night. Right away, with my coat still on, I texted her to thank her for her kindness and let her know I didn’t expected her to.She replied saying it was the least she could do.

And once again I was reminded of the kind and thankful friends I have.

Two Down, Two to Go

I have successfully written the Stats and International Relations exams! Yay! Now I have to wait until August to find out how I did. Stats turned out to be insanely easy once I learned a few formulas and what they did. IR turned out to be scarier than Scream (the original). They decided not to use the key buzz words in asking the questions and I was left hoping I was giving them the info they needed.

At one point I compared the relationship between states to the relationship between siblings, the balance of power to the love from parents. I also talked about a lot about random articles I have read in The Economist. And I have completely forgotten what I wrote for my second question, and even what it asked for. We are to pick four out of twelve. I wrote in two and a bit books for three hours straight.

The two last ones are Methods of Geo (on writing research papers) and Physical Geo (LOVE!). I have a week before them, and there is only a weekend in between. Failing Phy means not being able to take any second level courses. It is not an option.

In other news, I had my birthday. Day of was the Rapture (thankfully it didn’t happen… ) and I saw Bridesmaids with Erin. Fifteen minutes early and we were sitting in front row… Having my friends over in June to celebrate once my exams are over.

We have finally started SloPitch. After having rain out nights for three weeks, we had our first game two weeks ago. Lost. I was 3 for 4 and stood in the outfield like it was my bitch. Second game is Friday. I love my team. We kind of rock it on the losing side and never really seem to care about it.

It is scary and hard but I’m going to get past it

My exams start in a month and a few days. I am now only writing four, not five. I dropped my Human Geography course and will work on it in the summer and hold off on it until the next round of exams. It was just too much work for me to accomplish in my free time and still have some what of a life. I am finished one of my classes, almost done two others, and am horribly trying to catchup and learn Stats enough to at least pass the exam. I do not need to take it again, and at this point don’t even care what my mark in the class is. The course work book skips steps and points and assumes that you have taken it before. I have not. So I am reading Stats for Dummies and at least it has pretty photos and graphs that explain what is going on.

The whole exam aspect has scared me from the start. I would much rather write five papers than write an exam. Tests and I are not friends. We never really have been. Sitting in a large quite room with a piece of paper and a pen in front of me freaks me out. It makes my mind wonder to things that do not relate to what I need to write about. I am hoping to finish all of the readings for International Relations and Physical Geography this weekend and then have all of April to write the practice and past exams in hopes that will relax me and give me a better understanding of what I need to be doing in the large quiet room.

I am really looking forward to next year’s courses. I’ll be picking three, plus Human Geo, but only focusing on writing two of the three and Human, and keeping the last to work on in the summer months. I’m glad they let me do this, it is less pressure for me and hopefully will give me more free time to have a life next fall/winter. As of now I want to take all the courses available to me but I can’t, I have to select ones and skip on others as my program only calls for 12 courses and I have about 18 to pick from, including electives, which I want to keep open for more international relation courses to help with my hopes of working for the UN in some environmental field.

I’m also leaning more towards working with Geo Thermal energy studies. I know there is a company in Texas that is trying to prove that you can accomplish this on any continent. And in the summer my Dad, Sis, and I will be heading to Iceland for a 4/5 day vacation, where I am hoping to learn more about how they have set up a whole country with geo thermal power. I believe it is something that the World as a whole needs to think more about.

I will end this here as it has gotten longer than I was planning. If you know of any good geography books, even novels, please let me know! My dad gave me a volcano book for Christmas, it lists all the ones in the world (well that are known up to 2008) and it was my favourite gift.

Commuting and Trusting

There is something about commuting with a large number of strangers that creates this unknown level of trust. Every day you get on a bus, a street car, a subway car, or the train and subconsciously trust those around you. You trust no one has a knife, or a bomb, that the driver isn’t drunk, that someone won’t try too kill you. And well for the most part you are right. If you take the GO Train a far distance, and are like me and fall asleep in a moving vehicle, you sort of trust no one will steal your shit well you’re trying to grab a cat nap.

In a time when we have all heard about or witnesses various public transportation under attack, most of us push it a side and continue riding the bus. Sort of a “You fall of the horse, you get back on” sort of deal. You never really think about during rush hour, but at night with a pretty much empty GO Train, Subway car, or bus, the worrying of something going wrong hits you. This is mainly learned from movies and our parents telling us to never ride the bus alone at night. Or was that just my mom? Yet we all know about the subway bombings in England and we still hope on the TTC every morning. What makes this time a day anything different than at night? Is it that we’re not fully awake to worry about it? Or does the knowing other people are there create a safe guard? Not everyone is out to kill the human race, so therefore someone has my back? Some unknown kind stranger will help me out if I get knifed on my way to work?

I know if different attacks on the GO Train, yet many happen late at night when the trains are empty. yet my only worry is; If I fall asleep is something going to steal my lunch? I’ve never seemed to worry about someone having a bomb or a knife on the train, but why not? Even now that I’m thinking about it, I know that after work I’m going to hope on the street car, and in the New Year I’ll continue to commute on the GO Train and not worry about what others might be hiding under their coats.

I just find it interesting that in a time of crazy people, those of us that spend between ten minutes and an hour with over 100 strangers in a moving vehicle, we all seem to trust one another on some level, whether it’s a known or subconsciously.

Tron, Clone Wars, and Love & Other Drugs

I haven’t written a blog movie related post in a while. And this is pretty much just a small short post to update it a bit before I forget things I’ve seen.

Last night I was invited by a twitter friend to tag along to see Tron on the new Ultra AUX screen in Toronto. It was great. The screen is huge, 3-D, and the bass can be felt in your seat. They also asked some guy to put his phone away when the movie started. That made me happy. The seats are assigned, yet we didn’t sit in our, we jumped to the row in front of us that was empty and sat in the middle. Who follows rules anymore?

Tron was good. I enjoyed it. I’m not putting too much thought into it and trying to make it any better than it was, or I guess trying to pull it apart until it was garbage. It had a plot, a some cute lines from the first film, Garrett Hedlund in a tight outfit, and some awesome music that worked well for the Ultra AUX. I liked the story line, the characters, and the effects. They should have had more games, or really just more crazy lights/glowing.

Last week I was invited by Teletoon to see a special airing of three new Clone Wars episodes, which will air in the new year. I had never seen the show before, but it was pretty good. I like Star Wars, and I like the idea of the show, but I haven’t watched it since. It was good, but I’m either full on cartoons or people watching tv shows, not really “the whole show is computer generated” kind of watching.

Last weekend I went over to the local really small theater to watch Love and Other Drugs with my best friend. Well… there wasn’t much or a plot. There are characters and they have lives and things happen and really it just ended, and was not the great. I won’t want to see it again.

Next movies on my list is How Do You Know and Somewhere.

Sometimes Goodbye is the Only Choice

Friday was a hard day for me. I had to give the okay to have my cat put to sleep. My best friend, my consent of 16 years. She had been with me for all the major things in my life. When I cried in my room, she would sit with me and stare at me until I was okay. When I was sick she would cuddle with me on the couch. She ate breakfast with me (of course on the floor at her own bowl). We had Christmas together. I celebrated her birthday. She was my grade 2 show and tell. A few years ago she had developed separation anxiety disorder from the summer I spent at my dad’s. She licked all the fur off the bottom of her foot, we had to take her to the vets.

Tiny May 1994- Oct 15, 2010

Thursday evening when I got home from work, she didn’t come to the door, so I looked for her. After shaking her treats, and her not coming, I was worried. She always came to them. I found her hiding under my mom’s bed. Right out of my reach. We had to take the mattress and box spring off in order to get her. She wasn’t breathing well but by then all the vets were closed, and none had after hours.

I took her downstairs and placed her on her favourite pillow on the couch beside me and she didn’t move. When I finally told myself that I had to leave her and go to bed, I placed her, on her pillow, on top of towels, in the bathroom with the door shut. Friday morning I woke up around 10, then I went to check on her and just cried while sitting beside her. She was worse. I took her out of the bathroom and put her back on the couch and called my mom. She came home from work and we took her to the vet that could see us the quickest, which was an hour wait.

As soon as we arrived, I was again in tears, they took her downstairs to try to give her some oxygen. Not even five minutes later, the vet came back up stairs to inform us they could do nothing but put her out of her pain. I signed the papers and we went downstairs to say good-bye. It was all over within 15 minutes. Her lungs had filled with fluid and her heart was failing. I had no choice.

That afternoon I spent with my grandma and Aunt at their house. And that evening I canceled my plans and sat at home with our other two cats, one my sister’s and one my mom’s. I would be fine for an hour or so, and then I would just break down in tears. Saturday I woke up and had to remind myself what had happened. It felt worse than actually seeing it happen. I went to my dad’s. I couldn’t be there knowing she wasn’t. Crying and driving is really hard to do. Sunday morning I went into my mom’s room, as I did every morning to see her and I had to stop and remind myself she wouldn’t be there.

It will get better. I know this. Knowing that there was nothing I could do is helping. Having Thursday night to prepare to say good-bye helped. I know she was in pain, and this is selfish, but I needed that time. No animal can ever compare to Tiny.